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In 1667 there were seigneurial judges in the seigneuries of Beaupre, Beauport, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, Cap-de-la-Magdeleine. It is interesting to find that Talon attempted to establish a method of settlement out of court, the principle of which was accepted by the legislature of the province of Quebec more than two centuries later.
The other matter in which the directors of the company showed some interest was in the giving of seigneuries chiefly to themselves. About sixty of these seigneuries were granted, large tracts all of them. One director of the company secured the whole island of Orleans as his seigneurial estate; others took generous slices on both shores of the St Lawrence.
Now it was to the intendant, in Talon's time, that the king committed the duty of granting seigneuries and of supervising the seigneurial system in operation. But, later, when Count Frontenac, the iron governor of the colony, came into conflict with the intendant on various other matters, he made complaint to the court at Versailles that the intendant was assuming too much authority.
It was from the armed seigneuries of the Richelieu that Hertel de Rouville, St. Ours, and others quietly slipped forth and leaped with all the advantage of surprise upon the lonely hamlets of outlying Massachusetts or New York. How the English feared these gentilshommes let their own records tell, for there these French colonials put many a streak of blood and fire.
This support the hierarchy gave in various ways, by providing cures for outlying seigneuries, by helping to bring peasant farmers from France, by using its influence to promote early marriages, and above all by setting an example before the people in having progressive agriculture on Church lands.
It was fortunate that most seigneurs had more land than they could use; otherwise there would have been as many lawsuits as seigneuries. The obligations imposed upon the seigneurs were not burdensome. No initial payment was asked, and there were no annual rentals to be paid to the Crown. Each seigneur had to render the ceremony of fealty and homage to the royal representative at Quebec.
I will not give place to dukes or princes. I will have my seigneuries and my castles; my servants in rich livery, and my obedient subjects. I will be a grand seigneur. Kings and princes shall visit me in my castle, and wait in my antechamber, as I have been compelled to wait in theirs. I will be rich that I may be every man's master, even master of the fools.
The Roman Catholics have enormous endowments, including a great part of the island of Montreal, and several valuable seigneuries. Very large sums are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for baptisms, burials, and masses for the dead.
On the whole, however, the habitants who took farms within the seigneuries fared pretty well in the matter of the feudal dues and services demanded from them. Compared with the seigneurial tenantry of Old France their obligations were few in number, and imposed almost no burden at all.
Each district, likewise, had its own royal court, and from the decisions of these tribunals appeals might be carried before the Superior Council, which held its weekly sessions at the colonial capital. On the island of Montreal was the most important of the seigneuries in the district bearing its name.
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